Tag Archives: Fat Loss

“I want to get toned” and “I want a six pack/abs” are probably the single most common thing any personal trainer, or anyone who spends a significant amount of time in a gym will hear. Everyone wants shortcuts and magic supplements – but they don’t exist.

Generally speaking, the only way you can do it is through diet modification and hard work, so…. most of you will probably stop reading here 😦

For those who REALLY want to make the change (ie the ones willing to put the work in and get the results, not the ones who want to boast to their friends how much they’re training and dieting without ever really pushing outside the comfort zone), here’s some quick tips:

Things that WON’T work:
-just taking protein/fat burner/hoping you’ll get lean without changing anything else
-running for hours on the treadmill without modifying your diet
-flat out not eating anything

Things that WILL work:
-adjusting your food intake to “real” food
-knowing how many kcals you need to take in on a daily basis to obtain fat loss, and sticking to it
-patience (you didn’t get fat overnight, you won’t get lean that way either)

So Christmas is upon us and it’s the time of year when people tend to add a little extra winter padding. It happens, try not to stress out about it. Here’s a few quick tips that might help you to minimise any damage over the season of indulgence…

1) Don’t be all or nothing – if you have a slice of cake, it doesn’t mean your day is over. Keep the rest of the day on track and eat well to make up for it.

2) Glycogen depletion and calorie partioning – train with higher volume and intensities in the days before a big event and run your carb intake down a bit so that when you do go out and party, most of the calories go towards replenshing the depleted energy stores in your body from hard training rather than onto your hips/bum/tum in the form of fat. This is the exact reason I’ve designed my 2011 Christmas FitCamp.

3) Consider a mini diet – similarly to point 2, if you know there’s a big feast coming up on Saturday, run your kcals and carb intake down for the week before so that your average weekly kcal intake comes in right were it should be (also start your meals with lots of meat and leafy green veg and eat ’til you’re full – it’ll stop you eating too much dessert).